Friday, January 20, 2017

Lowe's Punch-out and Coloring Models: PT Boat, Space Craft, and Six-shooter Toy revolver (1963). James and Jonathan, Inc. 6 pp. "2219" is the third in a chain of punch-out and coloring books "recycling" the "boy with rocket" illustration and the punch-out rocket model itself. Check out below:

First is this one: TV Space Riders Coloring Book (1952)http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2014/04/tv-space-riders-coloring-book-1952.html

or was this first? Zedo Into Space (1952) which also included the same rocket:http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2012/03/zedo-into-space-1952.html

Friday, January 13, 2017

Another of those non-fiction children's books that everyone seemed to have but most are forgotten: I, like many, subscribed (via my parents) to the "Life Science Library". These arrived about every other month with a wonderful new science book written at a very general level.These were nicely illustrated and almost authoritative enough to use as a source for my grade school reports.

This one was originally published in English in 1964 and updated in 1969. But what I am sharing is the 1969 edition that was translated to Hebrew and published in 1970. Since I mostly post the illustrations, I wanted to share how these books were world-wide in their impact.Just to help orient you here is the English table of contents:

But as I said here are a few of the wonderful and nostalgic illustrations:

They started with explaining the concept of staging rockets.

A nice cross-section of a V-2 type of rocket

Illustration of the Nova rocket program and possible capsule configuration

Showing how satellites were used to to explore the planets and how the photographic data was transmitten back and converted by computers.

A nice history of space suit concepts

An excellent cross-section of an Apollo suit.

The next stage in space?

The books also had illustrations at the side of the text. Here are a few of my favorites including what life on other planets might be like based on conditions found there.